Three North Sea deals were among the top 10 non-US upstream oil and gas acquisitions in the first quarter of 2017, a new report said.

Mergers and acquisitions worth $39billion were announced outside the US during the three months, according to independent oil and gas researcher 1Derrick.

Sixty-five percent of that total was accounted for by Canadian transactions, driven by two mega oil sands transactions.

ConocoPhillips divested oil sands and deep basin gas assets to Cenovus for $13.3billion and Shell sold bitumen projects to Canadian Natural Resources for $8.5billion.

In the UK North Sea, Shell agreed to the sale of assets to Chrysaor, backed by Harbour and EIG Global, for up to $3.8billion, while Delek Group said it would pay about $1billion for the remaining 80.3% stake in Ithaca Energy.

ExxonMobil announced a $1billion divestment of operated Norwegian Continental Shelf fields to HitecVision-backed Point Resources.

Mangesh Hirve, COO of 1Derrick, said private equity had “become active” during the period.

Mr Hirve said: “Internationally, deals crossed the finishing line with transaction structures that included payments contingent on milestones and oil prices and kept some decommissioning liabilities with the sellers.”

In the US, $23billion worth of M&A deals were announced during the three months, taking the global total above $60billion.

It means Q1 2017 was the strongest first quarter in the past decade for upstream M&A.

Fourteen of the top 20 US deals were in the Permian Basin, including the three largest.